On Feb. 14, 2024, a social media post from U.S. President Joe Biden's reelection campaign implied that former President Donald Trump had compared the mass shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl victory parade — which left left one person dead and nearly two dozen others injured — to his 2020 election loss.
"Hours after another deadly shooting, Trump says the real 'tragedy' was his own election loss in 2020," the @BidenHQ account posted (archived) on X. The account is an official rapid-response arm for Biden's campaign. Included with the post was a 14-second video clip that showed Trump giving a campaign speech that evening in North Charleston, South Carolina.
Hours after another deadly shooting, Trump says the real "tragedy" was his own election loss in 2020 pic.twitter.com/qF6ZXROZTQ
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) February 15, 2024
During the clip, Trump references the Democratic Party and his 2020 election loss with the words, "We can't let them win. We're not going to have a country. But after the election, if a tragedy happened like happened three years ago. That was a tragedy what happened. That was a tragedy. Look what's happened to our country. Our country has gone to hell."
But Trump was not referencing the Kansas City shooting when he made those remarks, so we rate this claim as "False."
One of the top replies under the Biden campaign post read (archived), "Heartless and cold. Wow."
"Trump gives a true narcissist's reply to this tragedy," a different user remarked (archived).
Another user captioned (archived) the video as, "Sick f--- has words for 9 children shot today in Missouri."
These three examples were only a drop in the bucket of the number of people whose replies and reposts reflected that they believed that the post was saying that the video showed Trump addressing the shooting in Missouri that had happened just hours earlier.
However, the truth was that Trump did not mention the shooting during his speech. Further, surrounding context was missing from the 14-second video clip posted by the Biden campaign, as several users noted in other replies.
"Where's the entire video and the context of what he was saying? That matters," one person responded (archived). Other users also asked for context.
Snopes transcribed Trump's remarks that surrounded what the brief video in the Biden campaign post had highlighted. His full comments revealed that he was talking about energy prices and was boasting that he believed he could have done a better job than Biden, had he been elected in 2020.
Only the bolded part below was included in the post:
Under "Crooked Joe," energy prices have reached the highest in history. And gas prices have reached $5, $6 and even $7 a gallon. And now, it seems like they're going up again. They're doing everything they can. They'll use anybody. Send it around. They want to do anything they can. But after the election, we can't let them win. We're not going to have a country. But after the election, if a tragedy happened like happened three years ago. That was a tragedy what happened. That was a tragedy. Look what's happened to our country. Our country has gone to hell. But if a tragedy happened, you'd see prices, energy prices, go up double and triple.
Readers can watch this part of the speech beginning at the 5:58 mark in this YouTube video:
Snopes contacted both campaigns by email to ask about this matter and will update this story if they respond.
We previously reported about another false rumor also posted by the @BidenHQ account. In that instance, the Biden campaign's target was former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.